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Lord God, open our eyes to Your Presence, open our ears to Your Word, open our hearts to Your love which empowers us to live for You; in Jesus' name. Amen.
"Those who do not see the invisible cannot do the impossible." I recall those words from my Cambridge curacy days. The Vicar with whom I worked had them on a poster in his study, and whenever I saw it, it made me stop and think.
"Those who do not see the invisible cannot do the impossible." Thought-provoking words that speak of spiritual reality; of the hidden power behind the superficial realities of this world; of the life of faith and the vision which inspires it.
Yet that sounds rather silly to many modern ears. Surely, at the start of the 21st Century we can do without such religious waffle. After all, hasn't science solved the mystery of life?
Once upon a time, people used to find mystery in everything, including the very make-up of the human body. But now, a scientist tells us that the human being is nothing more than: fat enough for 7 bars of soap; iron enough for one medium-sized nail; sugar enough for 7 cups of tea; lime enough to whitewash a chicken coup; phosphorus enough to tip 2,200 matches; magnesium enough for one dose of salts; potash enough to explode a toy crane; and sulphur enough to rid one dog of fleas. Now, there must be a formula to explain everything; empirical evidence to back-up every assertion. Apart from entertaining excursions into fantasy worlds via the Internet or cinema, there are no real mysteries left.
Or are there? Yes, we do know so much more about ourselves and our universe than ever before. Yet most scientists would be the first to admit that much of their work opens up more questions than it solves. Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, is a notable exception. For him, the only valid knowledge is scientific knowledge, which he alleges to be totally incompatible with religious faith. No wonder Dawkins is baffled by his Christian colleagues who happily accept the compatibility of faith and science. For example, Francis Collins, head of the prestigious Human Genome Project, converted from atheism to Christianity. In his recent book, The Language of God, (2006) he defends the compatibility of Christian faith and evolutionary science, and he describes scientific discoveries an "opportunity to worship." Others, while not necessarily espousing a personal faith, are nevertheless ready to accept that some questions lie beyond science. Sir Peter Medawar, Nobel Prize Winner for his work in immunology, pointed out that the limits of science lie in its inability to answer elementary questions about life: What are we here for? What is the point of living? (P B Medawar, The Limits of Science, OUP 1985)
Science can only explain one level of the complex layers of meaning that fill our lives. A biological textbook, for example, can define "a kiss" as "the approach of two pairs of lips with reciprocal transmission of microbes and carbon dioxide". On one level, that is true. But try saying to someone you love "Let me give you a transmission of microbes and carbon dioxide", and see what the reaction is! Biological textbooks aren't much help when it comes to the mystery of love.
The more you think about it, the more you realize that we are surrounded by mystery. What is the beauty of a sunset? What is the spirit of a football team? What is the magic of music to stir our hearts? What is the power of a painting to evoke deep emotion? To these and so many other questions, scientific or mathematical formulae cannot provide adequate answers. Sometimes, poets and the writers of great literature come closer to describing the truth. But no language can fully explain the inner mystery behind the things that inspire us and make our lives worthwhile.
And so it is with God. God is not like a creature whose cells can be analysed under a microscope. God is not even like a distant planet that can be gazed at through a giant telescope and then neatly defined. At the University of Cambridge, there used to be an annual poetry prize. The poem was to be about "the nature and attributes of God, until such time as," in the opinion of one of the College Masters, "the subject be deemed to be exhausted". Put like that, it sounds laughable: the idea that the infinite and eternal being of God might be encompassed by the prize poems of students. And yet many people do assume that they need not bother to think anymore about God. They've got their own assumptions of what God is like, so why should they try to learn anything more? Perhaps even some of us think along such lines. If we've been churchgoers for ages, it's easy to assume that we've "got God taped", and we're quite comfortable with our cosy notion of Him.
Maybe even for Jesus' first followers it was a bit like that. Peter, James and John were His closest disciples. The earlier chapters of Matthew's Gospel tell us that they'd been with Jesus for some time; so maybe they were beginning to think, rather arrogantly, that they knew Him better than anyone else. Maybe they felt a bit too pleased with themselves - so much so, that even when Jesus was 'transfigured before them', they thought they knew just how to handle it. Peter did, didn't he? "Lord, it is good for us to be here... I'll put up three shelters - one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." But then they were overshadowed by the very Presence of God, and at the sound of God's voice, these grown men fell on their faces in terror. They became aware of something that was very real, but which had hitherto been invisible to them. They became aware of the mystery and awesomeness of God. Their eyes and ears were opened to spiritual reality - reality that, if they hadn't experienced it for themselves, they might have dismissed as "a cleverly invented story", as Peter puts it in his Epistle (2 Pt 1: 16).
Christian faith requires the acknowledgement of the truth of God's Majestic Glory, but not in a way that reduces faith to the level of a nice, neat formula. For God is extreme mystery, ultimate mystery. As someone has written: "God is a mystery, a beckoning word... the God of surprises" (Gerard Hughes). You and I may never experience such a tremendous, mind-blowing sense of the mysterious nature of the immortal, invisible God as did Peter, James and John on the mountain of Transfiguration. Nevertheless, if we are prepared to keep our ears and eyes and, especially, our minds and hearts, open - then we too will become more aware of the light of God's presence.
The season of Lent is nearly upon us; and Lent is a good time to have another look. We might begin by taking a deeper look at the Bible. For, as Peter wrote in our Epistle, the words of Scripture, inspired by God's Spirit, are like "a light shining in a dark place", and we will do well to pay attention to it (2 Pt 1:19f). For starters, we might make some moments to meditate on today's Gospel reading and to compare it with the Gospel accounts that will mark the end of Lent and Holy Week. The scene at the Transfiguration offers both parallels and contrasts to the Crucifixion. Today, on a mountain, Jesus is revealed in glory; then, on the hill of Calvary, Jesus is revealed in shame. Here, His clothes are shining white; there, they have been stripped off, and soldiers have gambled for them. Here, He is flanked by Moses and Elijah, two of Israel's greatest heroes, representing the Law and the Prophets; there, He is flanked by two criminals, representing the level to which God's people had sunk in sinful rebellion. Here a bright cloud overshadows the scene; there darkness comes upon the land. Here Peter blurts out how wonderful it all is; there he is in guilty hiding after denying he even knows Jesus. Here a voice from God Himself declares that this is His beloved Son; there a pagan soldier declares in surprise that this really was God's Son.
The mountain-top helps us to understand the hill-top - and vice versa. Perhaps we can only enter into the true meaning of the one when we look at it side by side with the other. Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, puts it like this: "Learn to see the glory in the cross; learn to see the cross in the glory; and you will have begun to bring together the laughter and the tears of the God who hides in the cloud, the God who is to be known in the strange person of Jesus Himself". (Matthew for Everyone, Part 2, p. 15 SPCK 2002)
Lent, flanked as it is by the mountain-top and the hill-top, invites us to enter more deeply into the mystery of how the power and love and beauty of God are revealed in Jesus. But Jesus is also the One who challenges you and me today to take up our cross and follow Him. On our journey through Lent, as indeed on the whole of life's journey, it is often at those times of testing and self-denial, of suffering and struggle, that we are most open to discern God's presence. Above all, may we remember that God is a mystery only to be explored in the humility of worship. So let us daily breathe a prayer that the Holy Spirit would open our inner, our 'spiritual' eyes, to appreciate how great is our God, and to have those glimpses of the apparently invisible which empower us to do the otherwise impossible.
Mary Barr
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